


Leaves Her Fingerprints

by Maidenjedi



Series: Ashes [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, post episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-28 23:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maidenjedi/pseuds/Maidenjedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mary stays behind, and starts cleaning up the place."</p><p>Scully, after 'The End.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaves Her Fingerprints

**Author's Note:**

> Written for XF_is_Love on Livejournal, 2013. Inspired by 'Mary' by Patty Griffin.

The basement office had gone up in flames.

It had been a virtual tinderbox anyway, said one of the firemen as he looked around disdainfully. 

Don't worry, now maybe you'll get a real office, said an agent in a suit who was obviously there to make trouble in the guise of doing a preliminary investigation.

Scully turned to Mulder, took in his stunned expression and slumped posture. She heard none of the jeers or admonitions or suspicions. Which meant he heard them all.

She did the only thing she knew how to do anymore. She took him in her arms, and held on, for as long as he would let her.

-

A fire in the basement of the J. Edgar Hoover Building would not go unnoticed. 

"Sources at the F.B.I. state that this was an accident, but the fact that the fire was contained in a small space is suspicious according to D.C. Fire Chief Hal Tolliver...."

"There was no evidence at the scene of foul play, and the investigation into this incident will remain internal. Sources say...."

"Sources say that the office was vacant at the time of the blaze, and an official statement from Assistant Director Walter Skinner, who declined to comment on-air, claims the office was actually only a storage space, used for an office during special investigations...."

And as always, a grain of truth.

"One eyewitness claimed that it was the office of Special Agent Fox Mulder, and that Agent Mulder himself may be under investigation for the fire. F.B.I. sources declined comment, though we can reveal that Agent Mulder is on administrative leave pending a hearing with Bureau officials."

-

She was certain she could smell burnt, wet paper and melted plastic from the front entrance. Absurd. She hadn't been able to properly smell anything since the radiation. Spring cherry blossoms could reek of burnt, wet paper and she would not know the difference.

And she had to use the front entrance. Again. Have her badge scanned, her weapon checked. They hadn't taken it from her, they left the extreme measures for Mulder, but she was being watched. Reminded that she was nobody special, either.

At the elevator, she had her first unpleasant encounter of the day. This was why she hated the front entrance.

"Agent Scully, surprised you're here."

"Agent Colton, good morning."

"Assistant Director, actually. Well, it will be by the end of the week. My promotion is good effective Friday."

"Congratulations."

"Yes. Well. Are you going somewhere?"

She looked at him and saw he was almost serious.

"My office, actually." And she pressed the button for the basement and said no more, even as Colton bounced on his heels a little as he stepped off on his floor, and nearly tripped in his arrogant zeal.

It was her office. Desk or no desk, she'd bled and wept and lost her sister for this job. It was her office.

-

There was no door. The remnants of it had collapsed, the doorknob with its ironic lock twisted on the ground. 

A file cabinet stood charred, its drawers flung open and contents soaked or burnt. Another had toppled over, spilling its secrets, few if any surviving. 

On the wall, the cork had survived, but nothing clinging to it had much of a chance. She could see the outline of what may have been newspaper clippings or receipts for reimbursement, mementos perhaps. And that poster she had contemplated, hated, and sometimes even identified with, clung precariously to a single pushpin, burnt beyond recognition.

As she watched, it fell to the ground, disintegrating.

"Mulder," she whispered. 

Was this all of him, all they'd left her with? A charred, smoking ruin?

-

She'd left him at his apartment, late in the night or very early in the morning. The chill of dawn had bitten her hands and cheeks and she'd been bone-weary, worn out from tears that she had not let him see. They had reached his apartment just after one in the morning, after the questioning, just as the reporters had descended outside the building. Thankfully they hadn't been followed (by reporters, at any rate). She'd had to drive. Mulder had just stared. He answered the police questions, the fire department's. Skinner's. And Scully held his hand through it all. 

He dropped it, as soon as they were out of sight of the small crowd.

She tried not to let this bother her, swallowed the lump in her throat. She had his keys, and she went for the driver's seat, and he said nothing.

Diana, the fire. It was no coincidence, and it was unlike Mulder to go so quiet, to lose all apparent will to fight or at least come up with a theory.

"Talk to me, Mulder."

He rubbed his hands together. Folded them. Did not look at her.

"Mulder, they...."

He shook his head. 

"Him, Scully. Him."

Mulder dropped his head against the back of the couch. He did not tell her to leave, and she did not want to. So they sat in silence until she was reasonably sure he was sleeping, and she was cramped from the cold.

-

Her hands flexed, as the basement was still colder, and the damp made her bones ache. _This place_ , she thought. _This wretched place_.

They had a hearing that afternoon. She wanted answers, if any were to be had. Better to come prepared, though she expected by this time tomorrow, she would be shopping for an apartment in Topeka.

So she dug. She picked at the papers on the desk, tried to recognize handwriting in the muddy soot. A file folder or two survived under a pile of other that were ruined, though it seemed they were for cases already closed, stories that had endings. She found a pair of glasses she was certain Mulder had lost three years before. A pair of her own shoes. 

The fire had been deliberate. Whatever report came out later, whatever Skinner signed off on and the press were told, Scully knew it had been deliberate.

She wasn't trained in this type of forensics, had no idea how to look for the traces of accelerants. But she knew no such thing had been used. It was a cigarette. Because of course it was.

Of course it was.

 _This place_ , her mind screamed. _This wretched place_.

-

_Here, at the door._

He'd turned to look at her, an amused, appraising look. He called her spy.

And she was, at first. For maybe twenty-four hours. Until he'd thrown his arms into the air in triumph over something as illogical as lost time, and laughed hysterically with her in the rain. She was young, she was hungry to prove herself. She was no spy.

_Here, on the wall._

"I want to believe." She didn't believe, but that was never their problem. She didn't _want_ to believe. "Scully, with all you've seen...." 

She did not want to believe. Even now, breathing in their failure and their defeat, she did not want to believe. 

_Here, at the desk._

She'd been petulant, angry with him because something was happening to her and she thought they were close, she thought he would sense it happening and explain it, with that spooky sixth sense he seemed to have about everything else. But he was flippant and authoritative, angry at something and taking it out on her. The rose petals were long gone. Her hand went to her lower back and she rubbed it unconsciously.

The ceiling was exposed, ventilation system falling and wiring hanging. One panel remained and curiously, two pencils still stuck out, ready to drop on someone's head during a serious moment. This room is not safe, she thought, and laughed aloud. 

Her eyes went to the filing cabinets. Was her file there any longer? Was Samantha's?

She remembered a night, when she'd first come back to work after her abduction. She had not wanted to go home - in those first weeks she crashed at her mom's, or else Mulder came with her to her apartment and pretended not to mind sleeping on the couch yet again - and she'd feigned interest in werewolf incidents in the Pacific Northwest in the fifties. Mulder, giddy, had shown her a dozen files and it started a conversation about horror movies, and they swapped stories about seeing _Texas Chainsaw Massacre_ without their parents' knowledge. He'd reached out and held her hand and his eyes had danced as they watched her laughing over sneaking back in the house after seeing _The Exorcist_.

She had forgotten, for almost an entire night, what real horror was.

 

-

Of course, the room was technically a crime scene.

There was little Scully could really do. She didn't have any equipment, for one thing, no gloves or bags or any way to take sensitive materials away, if any had survived. 

So she looked, and she cataloged what she could. She wrote down what she saw, to bring to Mulder. Scraps of evidence, a peace offering. She felt guilty. He had hardly spoken to her all night, his eyes were empty and she felt like it had been up to her to protect him from this.

She failed.

-

It had begun in flames and ash. How appropriate, then, that the case notes she'd handwritten at the airport in Seattle somehow survived this fire, hidden in the back of a file cabinet on the side of the room where the fire had done the least damage.

That night had been cold, wet. As she stood in the ruins of their temple she imagined herself back on that Oregon lawn. "Please, you have to help me. My name is Theresa Nemman."

Theresa's voice carried over the years and pierced Scully anew. The desperation, the certainty about what had happened to her. Scully's fingers flew to the back of her neck and she wondered, even now, how wrong she had been back then, whether she was wrong now.

Trust no one. Trust nothing.

Mulder hadn't always led her down a smooth path. He would be the first to admit it.

She would have to, in turn, admit that she hadn't always resisted.

All those women, Scully thought, Betsy's face in her mind. Why are we here? What did we do here? If it wasn't because of them, all of it for them.

She folded her notes and looked at her watch, heart racing. She wouldn't have much time to talk to him.

If he let her talk at all.

-

She was late. Skinner scowled at her, though she sensed it wasn't all about her. The color in Mulder's cheeks was high and he had the air of a chastised child. 

"Agent Scully. The panel wants to interview you separately. They were waiting to start with you."

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir, I...was held up."

His eyes narrowed but he gave no further rebuke. "I'll let them know you're here."

Skinner went inside, and Mulder leaned against the wall, still not looking at her. He hadn't slept after all, judging by the shadows on his face. His suit had obviously been picked up off the floor and thrown on. He didn't smell like smoke, so he'd showered.

"Mulder, I found something."

He still did not meet her eyes.

"Mulder, they will not win. They can't. And you can ignore me, hell, maybe you do blame me. But we have to fight, Mulder."

She pressed the papers into his hand. The door clicked open and Skinner appeared, nodding at Scully.

"Read it," she whispered at Mulder, and she walked into the room to receive her mid-western sentence. 

-

Mulder did not quit.

Scully would not let him.

-

_She did the only thing she knew how to do anymore. She took him in her arms, and held on, for as long as he would let her._

_"Mulder, let's go home."_


End file.
